Date of Defense
4-4-2020
Date of Graduation
4-2020
Department
Nursing
First Advisor
Pamela Wadsworth
Second Advisor
Elissa Allen
Third Advisor
Lisa Singleterry
Abstract
Objective
The purpose of this presentation is to exhibit the synthesis of research on the prevalence of sexual harassment against nursing students in clinical and academic settings. This presentation will also address research findings on to the effectiveness of programs to combat this problem.
Data Sources
Gather data from the databases CINAHL, ClinicalKey, PubMed, OVID and Scopus using the search terms “sexual harassment in nurs*”, “patient initiated sexual harassment”, “sexual harassment healthcare workers”, and “sexual harassment healthcare environment”.
Data Extraction
Inclusion criteria: published between the years 2009 -2019, primary research, nursing students as participants, sexual harassment experiences, harassment occurrences inside the healthcare setting (excluding intimate partner/domestic violence), research articles, and written in English. A total of 535 non-duplicate articles were initially located.
Titles were rejected for the following reasons: participants were not nursing students (n=521), lack of assessment or focus on sexual harassment (n=1). In addition, there were 260 duplications. Thirteen abstracts were then reviewed; (n=3) were rejected because of a focus on populations other than nursing students, (n=1) was rejected because it was not a research article. Nine articles met all of the inclusion criteria.
Data Synthesis
Initial analysis revealed that there is a wide range of sexual harassment against nursing students, from 4.2% to 71.7%. Most of the research occurred outside of the U.S. (n=7/9). There is scant research on the effectiveness of programs in responding to sexual harassment of nursing students. However, initial findings show that reporting systems and guidelines result in increased nursing student knowledge and appropriate response.
Conclusion
The lack of standardization of assessing sexual harassment against nursing students combined with a lack of research in the U.S. indicate more research is needed. More research is also needed to evaluate the effectiveness of programs to monitor and respond to sexual harassment against nursing students.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Emily M., "Prevalence of Sexual Harassment among Nursing Students" (2020). Honors Theses. 3265.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/3265
Access Setting
Honors Thesis-Open Access
Poster
Comments
Maria Roche-Dean, Fourth Advisor